


whatever lens you see through

by theappleppielifestyle



Series: going on a ride [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 17:46:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1558793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is forced to wear contacts and worries about how Steve will take it.</p><p>Because Steve <i>likes</i> his glasses, okay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	whatever lens you see through

**Author's Note:**

> I love Tony's glasses but not as much as Steve Rogers loves Tony's glasses.

It takes Tony a full hour to put them in. Although, to be fair, most of that was watching instructional Youtube videos and then swearing loudly when he attempted to do what the people were doing and then jabbing his finger in his eye instead.

He ends up looking like he’s just smoked a bong, eyes-wise. But he can see, which is the whole point of contacts. Or, the whole point of the contacts is so that Tony can see without those ‘freaskish glasses,’ as his darling father had phrased it. 

Tony eyes his ‘freakish glasses,’ which are sitting on the lip of the sink. They’re pretty big, Tony guesses- thick, black frames and whatever- but the specialist had assured him that they were the best. And after he had started hanging out with people who actually appreciated them, Tony had started to like his glasses.

And- okay, this might just be his idiot nearly-seventeen year old brain, but Tony is worried. About Steve. Or, he’s worried about what Steve will think of his new contacts, because even though no-one’s verbalized it, it’s a wide-known fact (in the circle of the Howling Commandos and Rhodey and Pepper) that Steve has a  _thing_  for them. As in, a kinky thing. 

Maybe not a kinky thing, even, but there’s the way Steve always does this little smile when Tony pushes his glasses up his nose while he’s talking. And how Steve sometimes kisses the middle of his glasses after they’re done making out and one of them has to leave. Or that one time he told Tony that it’s ‘so cute’ how Tony does this dumb face twitch to push his glasses back into place when he can’t be bothered using his hand.

Steve might be a weirdo dork (who the hell likes face twitching, for fuck’s sake), but he’s TONY’S weirdo dork.

And Tony would like to keep his new boyfriend, Steve, the weirdo dork who likes Tony, and has a thing which may or may not be kinky but is definitely a THING for Tony’s glasses. 

So, yeah, it might just be Tony’s sixteen, nearly-seventeen year old brain, but as he looks in the mirror and sees his reflection clearly without the help of his freakish glasses that he’s grown impossibly fond of, he can’t help worrying that that Steve won’t like him anymore without them. He envisions Steve’s face falling as he realizes in a stroke of clarity that he never liked Tony for Tony, he really only liked him for the glasses and Tony was the fortunate carrier of said glasses.

Tony’s 90% sure he’s just being an idiot. 

Okay, 70%. Steve  _likes_  his glasses, okay?

 

 

 

 

His first class goes okay, minus the severe itching of his eyes that gets Tony rubbing them every ten seconds and resisting the urge the other nine seconds.

Under his desk, he Googles whether his contacts should be itching this hard. Google tells him he has cancer, which isn’t helpful at all, and he scrolls until he is told by several people that he might have sensitive eyes.

By the time the bell rings, Tony has glanced at his reflection in the reflecting fish tank and has been weirded out every time. His eyes look naked without the thick frames caging them.

His phone beeps, and Tony’s worries vanish and then come back full-force as he sees it’s from Steve: 

_Meet at your locker. xx, Steve._

Tony bites his cheek to stop the grin. His dorky boyfriend always signs his name after a text, like he’s mailing a letter.

 _Don’t freak out,_  Tony tells himself on the walk through the halls. _He’s going to be fine about it. Just explain things, and he’ll accept it. He totally isn’t dating you for your glasses. Everything will be fine._

There’s also another voice in his head along with that one which is just screaming loudly in the background, but Tony tries to ignore it.

The screaming background voice gets louder and more high-pitched as Steve catches sight of him and stops smiling so much.

 _Shit, shit, shit_ , Tony’s background voice screams, and Tony tells it to please shut up so he can get broken up with in peace.

"Hey," Steve says when he’s in earshot, smile back now, but lessened and confused. He reaches up to touch the bridge of Tony’s nose, gentle as always. "You… got contacts?"

"No, I decided I’d walk around blind today," Tony says, hoping his blatant fear isn’t showing in his sarcasm. "Bumped off of walls for the entire class." 

Steve’s smile turns into a grin, but it’s still feeble, confused as hell. “You said you hated the idea of contacts. That you’d rather feed yourself to live crocodiles than willingly stick anything in your eyes.”

Yes, and he had also told Howard that, and look where that got him. 

"Ah, you know me," Tony tries for casual, waving a hand. "Always exaggerating. Total diva, that Tony Stark."

"No arguments here," Steve says, and the line between his eyebrows has smoothed out a bit. "So, you like them? The contacts?" His hand comes up to scratch at the back of his neck, eyes still tracking where the glasses should be.

"They’re okay," Tony shrugs, resisting the urge to scream,  _I haven’t stopped rubbing my eyes since I put them in, rip my eyes out and save me from this hell_. “I mean, I’ll get used to them.”

"Okay, if you’re fine with them," Steve says, shuffling and nodding and Tony sighs before he says, "Steve, I can switch back. I know you liked the glasses, it was one of the first things you ever said to me."

"You don’t have to switch unless you want to switch," Steve says, and the frown is back and it brought friends. "What I- what I like shouldn’t stop you from doing what you want with your body."

Somehow, Tony retains the willpower not to make a joke about that. He’s matured, truly. 

In front of him, Steve continues to shuffle and duck his head and be obviously uncomfortable with this change but unable to say it to his face. 

Tony sighs again and puts his hands in his pockets so he doesn’t start rubbing his eyes again. “You gonna kiss me good morning?”

And there it is, there’s the smile Steve started off with when he saw him coming down the hall, the smile Tony would move mountains and watch Sandra Bullock films with Steve to see it bloom on his face.

Steve kisses him, tilting Tony’s head back to do it. “Good morning, Tony,” he murmurs when he draws back, and they both pretend not to notice when Steve doesn’t kiss the bare bridge of his nose, which Tony’s glasses should be covering.

 

 

 

 

Tony makes it until he gets through the front door before fumbling at his eyes, trailing yelps of, “Ow, fucking ow, ow,” down the hall before he gets to the bathroom and takes both his contacts out. His eyes are streaming by the time he’s put them into their case, and he blinks blearily at his reflection.

There is no way in hell he’s doing that every day for the rest of his life.

He gets out his phone and types in his dad’s number. Thanks to a handy bit of hacking, it should look like Howard’s assistant is calling him, so of course he picks up.

"Miranda, I said no more offers-"

"Hey, Howard."

A beat, then: “Tony?”

"That’s me," Tony says. He doesn’t know where his dad is at the moment, probably on a plane to somewhere horribly important where everyone needs him. "Dad, I can NOT wear the contacts."

The weary sigh that always accompanies their short conversations comes over the line. “We’ve discussed this, Anthony. You have to get used to them if you’ll be wearing them from now on.”

"I don’t want to wear them from now on," Tony says slowly, like he’s explaining it to a child. This pisses Howard off more than most things. "They hurt my eyes. You know what never hurt my eyes? My glasses."

"Your glasses are unbecoming," Howard says. "Completely unfit for the heir to Stark Industries. Do you think I liked getting used to contacts? No, I didn’t, but I wore them anyway, because-"

"Because glasses doesn’t fit the Stark image, yeah, Dad, I know." Tony stares down his reflection; his bloodshot eyes looking back at him. "We can go round and round with this, or you can get over the fact that I’m going to be wearing glasses."

"Anthony." Another sigh, though this one is less weary and more pissed. Awesome.

"Bye, dad, I’m going to go wear my glasses and recover from the trauma my eyes have been put through all day," Tony says, and then hangs up.

He manages not to throw his phone in the sink after pressing ‘END,’ which is a success in his mind. He really has matured.

 

 

 

 

 

"Hey, I’m coming over." 

Steve’s tinny laugh doesn’t hold a candle to the real one. ”Hello to you too, Tony.”

"Hi, Steve. Steve, Stevey, my darling heart, light of my life, crunch to my cracker- I’m coming over."

"So I heard." A rustling, like Steve’s closing a book. "Anytime soon?"

"ETA ten seconds," Tony says.

He catches sight of Steve’s head leaning towards his bedroom window. ”You’re climbing the stairs to the apartment, aren’t you.”

"You love it," Tony says, trying not to pant too hard as he climbs in double-time. He’s nearly at the Rogers’ apartment, the door just out of reach.

"You’re very lucky I like you so much," Steve says, and the doorbell is echoed over the line as Tony pushes it.

"I’ll see you in, like, ten seconds," Tony says, and hangs up. The door in front of him is opened much faster than he expected.

In front of him is the ever-familiar face of Sarah Rogers, AKA Mrs. Rogers, who is currently brandishing a whisk. “Oh, sorry,” she says, simpering a little. “I didn’t know you and Steve had a study session today.”

"Yeah, we rescheduled," Tony says, playing along. He’s fully aware that Mrs. Rogers knows about him and Steve, ever since he walked in the door about two weeks ago and Mrs. Rogers had called out to him to please close the door this time, she didn’t want to hear those noises coming from her son.

Mrs. Rogers nods seriously. “ _Ah_ ,” she says, like Tony is imparting the wisdom of the world upon her and she’s lucky to hear it. “Very smart. Oh, Steve,” she says when she hears his footsteps down the stairs. “Tony’s at the door, do you have a test to study for or something?”

"Uh," Steve says, eyes going between Tony and his mother. Tony has no idea how she doesn’t even crack a smile; he’s trying not to outright giggle: after Mrs. Rogers had made it clear that she knew what was going on upstairs, she and Tony had made an agreement to let Steve think she was blissfully unaware. 

It’s much more fun that way, she had said, and Tony had liked her even more than he did previously, putting her right up there with his favourite people, neck-in-neck with Pepper.

"Bio," Steve nods eventually. "Yeah, big test, it’s supposed to be really hard."

“ _Well_ , I hope it’s not  _too_  hard,” Mrs. Rogers says, and Tony tries not to burst out into hysterics and ask her if she did, in fact, make a dick joke about her own son.

"Us too," Steve says. "Tony, we should-"

"Study," Tony nods, raising his eyebrows at Mrs. Rogers as he passes her. She gives him a look, and Tony hangs behind to mouth _I’ll close the door_  before following Steve up the stairs.

True to his word, Tony closes the door to Steve’s bedroom when he’s inside before turning to Steve, who is fidgeting.

"Yeah, yeah," Tony says, trying to grumble and failing due to the smile. "I gave up. Ironically, the contacts made me itch so hard I couldn’t see through the tears."

"That sucks," Steve says without feeling. Then, clearing his throat: "I mean, if you wanted to wear contacts. Then it sucks."

Tony sighs, drawing it out as he crosses the room and puts his arms around Steve’s neck. “Maybe,” he says. “Maybe, POSSIBLY, I didn’t want to wear contacts in the first place and only did it because my dad made me and after today I told him to go shove the contacts where the sun don’t shine.”

"Maybe," Steve says.

"Possibly," Tony replies. He does his little cheek twitch, and Steve watches it with a grin.

Tony rolls his eyes, which still itch, but are getting better without the contacts in them to constantly sting his corneas. ”I have no idea why you like that so much.”

"You’re so cute," Steve says, and kisses the middle of his glasses where the thick frames meet over his nose before pressing a kiss to his lips.

Tony sighs again, but opens his mouth for him. “You’re such a weirdo,” he mumbles into Steve’s mouth, drawing his arms tighter so Steve has to press closer. “Weirdo dork.”

"Mm," Steve hums against his lips. "But I’m your weirdo dork."

"Damn straight," Tony says, and then there isn’t any talking for a while. The door stays firmly shut, and when Tony leaves after it starts getting dark, Sarah mouths _thank you_  at him and grins when he blushes.

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/).
> 
> and here's the tag for [this 'verse on my tumblr](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/tagged/going-on-a-ride) :)


End file.
